and we're just burning to the ground
by mistsplash
Summary: She's only mediocre little Katie Bell. :KatieCharlie:


**Author's Notes: **For the Hogwarts Online Prompt of the Day (November Fourth): love can't tell time.

* * *

_and we're just burning to the ground_

by mistsplash

* * *

Don't you know, he'll be the end—_the death_—of you?

Of course you don't.

You're just a silly, stupid, naïve little girl with bright eyes and dancing thoughts.

* * *

She's not all fire and sparks like Angelina, who has the _indestructible twins_ hung all over her, she's not cherry-kisses and low-cut shirts like Pansy Parkinson, and she's definitely not parading around with a scar embedded into her flesh and half the wizarding world on her tail like that Harry Potter.

She's just plain, boring Katie Bell with dreams like stars and the silky-straight hair and a myriad of wishes that she knows will never come true. She's not prettily perfect or extraordinarily bookish.

Everything she does is mediocre. _She's_ mediocre.

Except maybe in Quidditch, but even then, Angelina surpasses her by _miles and miles_ and she's way too nice to try and get even, you know, because she's only imperfect little Katie Bell who's somehow a pushover and really, she shouldn't even be in Gryffindor at all.

* * *

But you really didn't realize that when you first met—

—his heart wasn't beating _fastfastfast_ like yours.

* * *

She meets him by chance, on an off day in their seventh year, when the war is looming over everyone and everything and the shadows are the only things alive. Angelina had dragged her to the twins' new shop—some prank store, which is colorful and decorated in lights and just so very _Fred and George_ that it makes her laugh.

As she thinks this, Fred and George appear out of nowhere, grinning like mad at the sight of Angelina—and herself, she guesses (hopes).

"How've you two been, eh?" George asks conversationally, leading them to the back of the store. Fred had left to man the front counter, much to Angelina's dismay. "How's Hogwarts, huh?"

"It's _awful_," Angelina confesses, and Katie only nods, feeling very out of place. "It's so dark and evil and not like Hogwarts at all."

"Yeah, I know," George says, sounding serious for the first time in a while. They are silent as they cross the rest of the space to a dark black door, which has the golden words 'Employees Only' emblazoned onto the front. George ushers them inside, where Angelina promptly seats herself on a red, velvety couch. Katie follows her example after a moment's hesitation.

She only barely notices a figure approach her, and when he does reach her, she jumps and nearly screams. "Who—who are you?" she demands, squirming under the intense gaze of a brown-eyed, redheaded man, who has a firm jaw and a muscled frame and many scars spiraling up his arms and creating seams of burnt flesh. But he's also got the famous Weasley freckles and a nose familiar to Fred's and George's, so she guesses that he's a relative.

"Oh, that's just Charlie, my brother," George informs her airily, before turning back to his conversation with Angelina.

Katie barely hears. There's blood rushing to her cheeks and her hands are trembling horribly, plus her heart is making somewhat of a racket in her chest. "Um, hi," she says lamely, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. "I'm Katie…Bell. Katie Bell. Um, yeah. That's me."

He laughs richly, which only makes her turn redder. "I'm Charlie."

And the conversation goes on from there, sometimes lapsing into silences which she quickly fills because she doesn't want him to hear her heart beating so fast it might burst.

* * *

Dear, you're in _love_, and that's some shit, don't you know?

Because love _burns and hurts and bites_—

—and you've just fallen prey to the absolutely worst kind.

* * *

He's suddenly _there_ in all her thoughts—his smile when he listened to whatever she said, his laugh when she said something funny—_everything_.

After meeting him at the twins' place, he had asked her to go to Diagon Alley with him one day, maybe get something to eat. Her princess heart _jumped_ and _leaped_ for joy, and she had nodded frantically, more blush infiltrating her cheeks. He had been nothing short of pleasant, and he had her so deep in love without even knowing it.

Because she's just a naïve little girl with newer, bigger, _better_ wishes and larger dreams that she wants so badly to come true, because he's _right there_ in her grasp and she's not planning on letting him go any time soon, you get that?

She doesn't stop to think that _maybe_ she's reading into things a little too much.

* * *

So now your heart's about to break, yeah?

But you should've seen the signs, read the actions, thought it out logically.

Because now's such a bad time for your daft-Gryffindor genes to kick in.

* * *

She's not supposed to be drinking, but she's _technically_ of age, so she figures, why the hell not? So she grabs a pack of butterbeer and he meets her with a few bottles of firewhiskey, and they just gulp it down and she tries her best to ignore the stinging sensation.

"Have you ever been in love, Kate?" he asks, and she vaguely recalls something Fred said about Charlie not being able to handle alcohol very well. Plus, he called her _Kate_, which is a nickname he _knows_ she hates.

But his words are burning their way slowly into her mind, mixed in with a sea of whiskey and beer and bliss, and suddenly, her hopes skyrocket and she inches closer. "Yeah," she murmurs, "I have." He smells vaguely of cologne and the outdoors, behind the overpowering alcohol stench that covers him.

"Good," he tells her, obviously relieved. "Because there's this girl I really like."

"Who?" she asks; her eyes are big and bright. She just _knows_ it her, because he's taken her out on all these dates and he's hugged her and all he's been focusing on his _herherher_. Right?

"Shh, don't tell," he says giddily, hiccupping a little bit. "It's a secret, y'know. Because Bill's married to her and all, but she's just so pretty—and you're a girl, right, Kate? So you know how I can get her to notice me."

_Fleur._

Her heart's beating brokenly now, no longer situated in the fast pace it had located itself in when they first met. Now, it's only a slow, steady, melancholy rhythm in the world of unheard sounds.

She's not really nice little (imperfect) Katie Bell anymore.

She humors him, gives him tips that she _knows_ won't work, and what she doesn't tell him is that all he needs to do is act like Fleur's friend and he'll have her charmed to hell and back.

When they're done talking, he gets up, a goofy grin on his face, and plants a sloppy kiss on her forehead. "Thanks, Kate," he murmurs.

She's left alone, broken, in the middle of the night, with single tears embedding trails of hurt onto her fragile skin.

* * *

Time passes around you, girl, and people _die_ and _suffer_.

But you're stuck in the same place, because deep down you're just some selfish bitch, right?

_Exactly.

* * *

_

She's old now, with her skin wrinkled and her hair fraying and the only thing remotely youthful about her are her eyes, which are still warm and shiny.

She doesn't marry, not really, because _he_ doesn't marry and there's always that hope for her. She's a princess and he's her wannabe prince, so she's all into the _true love_ and _happily ever after_ stories_._

She's still waiting for him, even though he's gone, surrounded by cold and dirt and bugs because he's _six feet under_, unmarried and young, taken away due to an accident at work. She wonders if he burned to the ground—the same way he burned her heart, and sometimes, she wants to get back at him for leading her on, but then she remembers that she's just Katie Bell, and Katie Bell is too nice for those thoughts.

But sometimes she'll look in the mirror and she's seventeen again, eyes bright and sparkling, hair long and silky, burning with the feel of his lips—alcohol-stained and wet—on her forehead, lingering there. Sometimes, she'll convince herself that she's not as _deep in love_ as she was when they first met.

* * *

And that's right—you, little girl, with the big dreams and the sweet persona, were left behind, _in the dust_.

Yeah, that's the story of your life.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **KatieCharlie :3 Haven't written this before; slightly different style. Lemme know what you think~?


End file.
